Chapter 4
four
Mac
I sit in my truck outside Mountain Treasures, hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person.
The sign in the window says CLOSED, but I can see her through the glass, moving around inside. Dark curls pulled back, that soft sweater she was wearing this morning, those curves that have been haunting me for days.
I'm about to tell her my biggest secret. The thing I've hidden for three years. The thing that makes me vulnerable in ways combat never did.
And I have no fucking idea why I'm doing it.
Except I do. Because when she looked at that afghan this morning, she saw it. The way Birdie does, but different. Birdie sees what it means for my healing. Isla saw what it means about who I am.
I get out of the truck before I can talk myself out of this.
The door chimes when I push it open, and she turns, her face lighting up in a way that makes my chest tight.
"You came," she says, like she wasn't sure I would.
"Said I would."
She locks the door behind me and flips the sign to CLOSED. The click of the lock feels significant somehow. Just us now. No one else.
"Do you want coffee? Tea?"
"Isla." My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. "I need to tell you something."
She stops, her hands falling to her sides. "Okay."
I've faced enemy fire. Jumped out of planes. Watched friends die. But standing here, looking at this woman who somehow makes me want things I thought I'd given up on, terrifies me more than any of it.
"The afghans. The baby blankets. All of it." I force the words out. "I make them. Not Birdie. Me."
She doesn't look surprised. Just nods slowly. "I know."
"You know?"
"I figured it out. The yarn. The way you looked at that afghan. The way you knew exactly what colors you needed." She takes a step closer. "Why do you hide it?"
Because men aren't supposed to knit.
Because I'm already the weird loner who can't handle crowds.
Because it's the one thing that keeps me sane and I'm terrified someone will ruin it by mocking it.
"It’s easier," I say instead.
"Easier than what?"
"Than being seen."
She's close now. Her brown eyes are steady on mine, no judgment in them. Just curiosity and something that looks like understanding.
"I see you," she says quietly. "And what I see is someone who creates beautiful things. Someone who donates to charity. Someone who takes care of an eighty-five-year-old woman because he worries about her."
I can't look away from her.
"Why knitting?" she asks. "Out of everything you could have chosen."
The question catches me off guard. No one's ever asked before. "I learned it in the hospital. After my last deployment." The words come haltingly. "I had PTSD so bad I couldn't... couldn't function. Nightmares. Shaking hands. Rage."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't pull away. Just listens.
"Therapist said to find something repetitive. Something that creates instead of destroys." I swallow hard. "So I... I tried it."
"And it helped."
"Only thing that did." I look down at my hands—these big, scarred hands that have done terrible things. "These hands... they've hurt people. Killed people. But when I'm knitting, they make something soft. Something that keeps babies warm. Something good."
When I look up, her eyes are shining with tears.
"Don't cry. I didn't tell you to—"
She reaches up and cups my face in both hands. "You're one of the best men I've ever met."
Something in my chest cracks wide open.
"I'm not."
"You are." Her thumbs stroke my cheeks. "You're scared and damaged and hiding, but you're so damn good. And I want—" She stops, bites her lip.
"What do you want?" My voice is rough.
"You. I want you." Her cheeks flush pink. "But maybe we should... do you want tea? I have tea upstairs. We could talk more. About the knitting, or—"
I answer by closing the distance between us and kissing her.
She makes a sound of surprise and want mixed together and opens for me immediately. Her hands fist in my flannel shirt, pulling me closer, and I back her against the counter.
"Mac," she gasps against my mouth.
I'm already trailing kisses down her neck, tasting her skin. "Tell me we should have that tea."
"Fuck the tea." Her head falls back, giving me access. "Don't stop. Don't you dare stop."
I lift her onto the counter, stepping between her legs. She wraps them around me instantly, and the feel of her pressed against me makes me groan. I'm hard already, since she touched my face, and she can definitely feel it.
"Upstairs," she breathes. "I live upstairs."
I pick her up, she’s perfect in my arms, and she directs me to a door at the back of the shop. Stairs. An apartment that smells like her. And then a bedroom.
We're on each other the second I set her down. Shirts hit the floor, then jeans. She's wearing black lace that barely covers anything, and I tear it off her. When we're finally naked, I push her down onto the bed.
"Fuck, look at you." I take in every inch of her—soft curves, flushed bronze skin, dark curls spread across the pillow. "Been thinking about this since Tuesday."
"Then stop looking and touch me."
I lower myself over her, taking her breast in my mouth. She arches into me, her hands fisting in my hair. I use my teeth, just enough to make her gasp, then soothe with my tongue. Her dusky nipple is hard against my mouth, and I can feel her squirming beneath me.
I work my way down her body, kissing and biting. When I settle between her thighs, she spreads wider for me.
"Mac!"
I drag my tongue through her, and she nearly comes off the bed. She tastes perfect, and I work her with my mouth until she's shaking, her thighs trembling against my shoulders. I slide two fingers inside while I suck on her clit, and she cries out.
"That's it," I growl against her. "Let me hear you."
She's close, I can feel it in the way she's clenching around my fingers, but I pull back before she can come. She makes a frustrated sound that goes straight to my cock.
"Not yet, baby. I want you coming on my cock."
"Then fuck me already."
I line myself up and push inside. She's so tight I have to force my way in, inch by inch, until I'm buried inside of her. The way she feels around me, hot and wet and gripping me, nearly ends me right there.
I hold still for a moment, letting her adjust, watching her face. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips parted as she breathes hard.
I pull almost all the way out and slam back in. She gasps, her nails digging into my shoulders. I set a brutal rhythm, taking her hard and deep the way her body is begging for.
"God, yes," she moans. "Just like that. Don't stop."
I hook her leg over my shoulder, changing the angle, and she screams. I'm hitting deeper now, each thrust making her whole body shake.
"You feel so fucking good," I tell her, my voice rough. "So tight around me. Taking me so well."
"Harder," she demands, and I give her everything.
I pound into her, the headboard slamming against the wall, both of us beyond words now. Just breathing and gasping and the slap of skin on skin. I reach between us, find her clit with my thumb, and rub circles while I fuck her.
"Mac, I'm—I'm going to—"
"Come for me." I lean down, bite her neck. "I want to feel you come on my cock."
She shatters, her whole body going rigid as she clenches around me. The way she's gripping me, the sounds she's making, the way her nails rake down my back—it's too much. I thrust three more times and follow her over, burying myself as deep as I can go as I come.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. We're both breathing hard. My arms are shaking from holding myself up.
I pull out carefully, then collapse beside her on the bed. She immediately curls into my side, her head on my chest, one leg thrown over mine.
"Holy shit," she finally whispers.
"Yeah."
She props herself up on one elbow, looking down at me with those warm brown eyes, her hand tracing patterns on my chest. "That was perfect. You're perfect."
I'm not, but I don't argue. Just reach up and tuck a curl behind her ear.
"You're staying, right?" she asks. "Don't do the guy thing where you panic and leave."
"Not going anywhere."
"Good." She settles back against me. "Because we're definitely doing that again. Soon."
We lie there in the quiet, and I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.
"Mac?" she says after a while.
"Hmm?"
"Thank you. For trusting me. For telling me about the knitting, about what it means." She kisses my chest. "That took courage."
"Stay tonight," she says softly. "Don't go back to your cabin alone."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure." She kisses me. "I like having you here."
"I like being here."
"Good." She's grinning now. "Now, about round two..."
This time, I let myself smile.
"Yeah. We can do that."
And we do. I take her from behind this time, her face pressed into the pillow while I grip her hips and drive into her.
Then again in the shower, her back against the tile while the hot water pounds down on us.
And once more before dawn, slow and deep, her legs wrapped around me as I move inside her.
By the time the sun comes up, we're both exhausted and satisfied, tangled together in her bed. And I finally believe that maybe I deserve this. Deserve her.
Even if that thought still scares me.